Two men who harassed elderly people to pay extortionate fees for unnecessary building work have been jailed.

Builder Michael Casey, 40, of Brookes Place, Potters Bar, was jailed for eight years yesterday for his role as part of a gang who intimidated and harassed elderly people.

Trevor Lee-Shield, 56, of Gaydon House, Bourne Terrace, Westminster, was also jailed, being sentenced to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment, suspended for two years.

Another man will be sentenced on Tuesday, September 1.

Casey and Lee-Shield were two members of a gang who convinced victims their homes needed renovation before bombarding them with hundreds of calls and sometimes verbally abusing them.

One of the victims - a 69-year-old man from Lewisham - paid them almost £100,000 and was on the brink of handing over the deeds to his house following months of manipulation.

It was at this point that he informed police and detectives from the London Crime Squad began recording phone calls from a man calling himself ‘Tony’ who manipulated the victim into taking out a bank loan to pay the gang.

When one of his associates went to the victim’s house to collect the cash, police were waiting and arrested him. He was later convicted.

In his victim impact statement, the Lewisham victim said: "I feel the people who did this to me are the sort of people that should be put away for a long time.

“I think that if police had not got involved they would not have stopped demanding money from me."

‘Tony’ remained at large but detectives identified that the phone number belonged to Michael Casey, and had also been used to call an address in Camden.

Officers visited the address and found the female occupant was regularly being contacted by a ‘Mr Lyon’, who had conned her out of nearly £40,000.

After receiving abusive telephone calls from ‘Mr Lyon’, she had started recording their conversations which detectives then used to verify that the man parading as ‘Tony’ and ‘Mr Lyon’ was in fact Casey.

After a year on the run, Michael Casey was arrested on Thursday, January 8 when he handed himself in at Wandsworth Police Station.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the victim in Camden and the victim in Lewisham on Thursday, June 25.

Detective Constable Siobhan Cowlin, of the London Crime Squad, said: “The gang chose vulnerable victims and embarked on a campaign of extortion. Michael Casey was pivotal, bombarding victims with calls - first to befriend them, then to strong-arm them into paying spiralling costs.

“He convinced the victim in Lewisham to talk to him in code, using the names ‘Bravo one’ and ‘Bravo two’ so that he knew he was not speaking to police when he rang - although this didn’t work for him in the long run.

“Such was Michael Casey’s arrogance, after calling the victim to harass him for a further £11,000, he convinced the victim that he should buy him a carton of cigarettes costing £120 as a Christmas present.

“What this gang did is deplorable and I believe they would have continued to target elderly people if they were not now behind bars.”

A financial investigation is under way, with a view to seeking confiscation orders against the men.

Three others were sentenced for their part in the criminality on July 29, 2014.